


The American Road Trip and Other Cultural Cliches

by TheCohort



Category: Stranger Things (TV 2016)
Genre: A preemptive alternate season 4 for gay people who don't love kids (me), Age Difference, Also (murray), Alternate Universe - Canon Divergence, Fix-It of Sorts, M/M, Monster of the Week, Original Characters - Freeform, Road Trips, Slow Burn
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2019-08-10
Updated: 2019-09-01
Packaged: 2020-08-14 17:24:16
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 4
Words: 16,971
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/20195950
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/TheCohort/pseuds/TheCohort
Summary: They have a van, a mattress that no one should sleep on, a suit case of vodka, and a map of the United States marked with 6 bright red Xs. Hawkins Indiana wasn't the only town on the Russian radar, and after another of the potential gates makes national news, Murray and Alexei set out to right wrongs and report on the decaying veil between dimensions, whatever that might mean.





	1. Episode One: Stranger Things

**Author's Note:**

> So I finally did the research and it's really unlikely Alexei could have survived a point blank gunshot wound to the stomach like that, but this is fan fiction and therefore I can do what I want. We're all going to assume that woody the wood pecker was stuffed very tightly with Kevlar, and the bullet only went a little bit in. Just the tip. 
> 
> This whole fic was meant to be a fun experiment where I tried to write 8 chapters that would take the same amount of time to read as it would to watch an episode of the show. Like a real season four. And then I realized that that’s a whole ass book and I genuinely don’t have the time to add another novel length WIP to my life. So instead expect semi-regular updates of 4-6k chapters? This one took me somewhere around 5 days to write and edit, so the next chapter should be up next weekend. Let’s all optimistically look to Saturdays for updates. 
> 
> A note on dialogue: I've used italics to show when the characters are speaking russian. It's not my favorite way of doing things, but because there is more english being spoken than a story focusing entirely on Murray and Alexei it seemed necessary, and helps to denote when Alexei repeats english or is using his own growing english vocabulary (because my baby is a genius and there's no way he's not picking up some english in a month long hospital stay and a roadtrip with murray).

Murray probably should have bought a different brand of cheese. It was the same color orange as the little conga line of pill bottles to his right, and there was no way it was natural. Even by dyed cheddar cheese standards it was unsightly, but you couldn't find the natural looking stuff anymore even if you wanted to. Murray wanted to. 

He poked at the sad grilled cheese sandwich. It still wasn't melting. 

Murray grabbed up one of the orange pill bottles and wandered away. It would probably burn in the next minute just to spite him. He tossed a cherry Hi-C and the bottle of antibiotics at the couch, the first hitting Alexei in the thigh with a sad plastic straw crinkle and the second landing in his lap with a rattle. Alexei gave him the bird and kept frowning at the papers laid out in front of him. Between the juice boxes and the orange cheese the woman who rang him out had made a face like he had many children or no regard for his own health. It was a pitying look whichever way you took it.

He returned to the kitchen to continue poking at the sad cheese. The corners had curled over the crust of the bread, which was probably good enough.

They sat on the couch eating their sandwiches in silence, Alexei periodically setting his aside to flip through the Russian-English dictionary Murray had bought when everything went to shit. Occasionally he filled in a space on the paperwork.

"_How do I say, 'I helped save your entire country, let me stay, you bastards?'_."

Murray snorted. "_I'll write it down for you later._" Alexei nodded and flipped to the next page. He paused to read over the first line, then shoved it away in frustration. The thick packet slid off the table and landed on the far side with a sad plop. "_I don't think anyone would recommend translating legal bullshit as an introduction to English._" Murray said. "_Maybe start with sesame street._"

"_I have a doctorate in engineering I will not watch the sesame street._"

The afternoon soaps played on the TV and honestly sesame street would be preferable if you asked Murray. They'd turned the volume down. There was only so much dramatics a person could take in one sitting, and even without understanding what was being said Alexei'd been able to tell the acting was horrendous and the plot was pointless. Making fun of it for half an hour had been a good distraction from the pile of paperwork they'd gotten from the state department, but eventually they'd returned to the task just to feel a bit more competent than the disaster unfolding on screen.

Murray stood, grabbed the paperwork and placed it back on the table, then grabbed up their plates and tidied up the kitchen. When he returned with a fresh cup of coffee he found Alexei smoking and tapping a pen relentlessly against the table top. Murray grabbed the cigarette and brought it to his own lips.

"_No smoking._"

Alexei rolled his eyes. "_That doctor is an idiot._"

Murray sighed, smoke billowing out with it, "_How__ did I get stuck babysitting you?_"

"_You learned Russian._" It was a familiar accusation.

"_My mistake, Next time __I have __the urge to learn __and better myself__ I'll make sure to ignore it._"

Alexei snorted and slumped back into the couch. He always held his shoulders stiffly now. Constantly watching the way he held his body to avoid unnecessary pain from his chest. His survival had been nothing short of miraculous, but it had still taken a month of surgeries and recovery in the hospital to get him on the road to recovery. Then a week of intense on site therapy and now he was here; haunting Murray's guest room and couch while bitching about the stretches and the antibiotics and the paperwork.

He looked tired.

Murray finished the cigarette with a long drag and stubbed it out. "_You want the rest of this coffee?_" 

It seemed only fair. He'd taken the man's smoke.

Alexei nodded. "_I want to finish this section._" the 'before I take my painkillers and a nap' went unsaid, but that had been a part of his daily routine since he'd left the hospital.

Murray handed him the mug and leaned over to grab the remote from Alexei's other side. Murray always took his coffee black, and despite his love of sugar Alexei seemed happy enough steeling sips of Murray's instead of making a cup of his own.

Murray had decided not to question it.

He flipped through the few channels he could pick up out in his warehouse; Soap opera. Soap opera. Game show. News. He stopped on the news channel, a 24 hour national set up. The news anchor droned on about the rising conflicts between local businesses and shopping malls that had followed their spread across the country. Murray knew not every mall in the United States was a cover for Russian infiltration, but he still felt a jolt of panic at the thought. His thumb rubbed over the power button nervously, but willful ignorance had never been his style, and he left the TV on.

The pictures of colorfully dressed teens and bright neon signs advertising the very best deals dropped from the screen to be replaced by the aerial view of a several homes collapsed into the ground. "A massive sink hole opened in the suburbs of Three Rivers, Michigan, last night while residents were asleep. No casualties have been reported, but several people remain unaccounted for-"

"_What did he say?_" Alexei asked.

"_Sink hole. Swallowed a couple houses_."

"_No, no, the town._"

Murray looked over and frowned. Alexei's eyes were locked on the TV screen. "Three Rivers. Michigan." Murray said.

Alexei licked his lips and shot Murray a glance. He replaced his tongue with his teeth and chewed faintly. "_We might have a problem._" he finally admitted.

After all was said and done the map boasted a spread of 6 red Xs, including Hawkins Indiana, and Alexei was chewing furiously at the end of the red Sharpy like it might provide him the nicotine he'd have gotten from his forbidden cigarettes.

Murray tapped at the X in West Virginia. "Point Pleasant? _Really_?"

Alexei shrugged.

"_All these towns have gates?_"

Alexei shook his head. "_I don't think so. But they were all points of interest. Unusual phenomena, potential weak points between..._" he waved a hand, "_Dimensions. Worlds._" He circled both Hawkins and Three Rivers on the map. "_Hawkins was chosen for our project because we received confirmed accounts of a crossover event, but if the sink hole is related to the unusual activity we were looking into then the other locations may also show worsening symptoms of-_" he said something Murray didn't recognize, but he got the idea. The wall between worlds was decaying. And the others might too.

"_Is__ it possible that while you were working on the Hawkin's project, other branches of the experiment were in progress in other locations?_"

He sighed and sat back into the couch. "_I didn't know about it, but yes. It is possible._"

Murray leaned his elbows on his knees and rubbed both hands over his face. He took a deep breath and slid them down over his face and turned to look at Alexei. His face was troubled and his lips were red and chapped from the way he had chewed on them nervously. "_Why?_" Murray asked.

He shrugged, "_We beat the __U__nited __S__tates to space, you beat us to the moon, and since no one will reach __M__ars any time soon, such as it is, why not try and reach for an entirely different dimension?_" he smiled, and then in a tone that sounded like he was reciting from memory he said, "_Imagine the glory we would gain for our country if we could open the door. It would have launched the soviet state into a new era of scientific discovery._"

"_No__t them. Y__ou. Why did you do it?_" It was something he’d wanted to ask since they’d sat down and spelled it out for Joyce. He just hadn’t wanted the answer bad enough. That still bothered him. 

Alexei winced. "_I didn't know._" he looked resigned, "_I thought I was applying for a position with the space program. During the interview they posed a question regarding how I might engineer a device to reach an alternate dimension. It seemed entirely theoretical, and it was a fun puzzle to solve. Apparently my answer impressed them, they hired me as a research assistant, and by the time we had completed the project I was second in command. It failed, they killed my superior, and by that point it was clear that I had no choice in the matter._"

"Shit." 

Alexei smiled. "_Yes. _Shit. _In our defense, we didn't know what would be on the other side._"

"_We need to tell Joyce._" Alexei rolled his head over the back of the couch to shoot him a confused look. "_I know the chances she's planning to move to another town __that’s __mired in this shit are slim, but I think she's proven that luck's not really on her side_."

She wasn't picking up the phone. After the third attempt Jonathon picked up with a curt "What?"

It was comforting to know teenagers still slept till noon on weekends. He'd grunted a vague agreement to tell his mother they'd called and then hung up. With force, Murray assumed. After that it was an intolerable waiting game. Murray hadn't realized how often he ignored the ringing of his phone until he actually was answering it.

Phone call number one had been a telemarketer, which should not have been possible.

"Hello, I'm trying to get in contact with uh…resident."

Murray hung up.

Phone call number two was the hospital.

An unnecessarily cheerful woman greeted Murray and jumped right in, "We're just calling to check in with...” she hesitated over the pronunciation, “Mr. Kuznetsov. Is he adjusting to daily life alright?"

Murray glanced to the couch where Alexei was laid out, mouth open, and snoring gently. "He's fine."

"Getting plenty of rest?"

"Oh, definitely."

"Wonderful, and he's still taking the antibiotics? Those are very important."

"Yes."

"And he's keeping strenuous activity to a minimum?" her bubbly voice was starting to sound strained. Murray rolled his eyes and waited, "We can't have him doing anything too physical. Light stretches only." she tutted.

"Yes. He knows."

"Wonderful." she purred, "Keep it up and he'll be better in no time. If you have any questions we're available to call every day from 8am to 9pm."

Murray already knew this. They'd told him the day they discharged Alexei. And then the first time they'd called to check in. Now that he'd finally started picking up again they seemed determined to drive it into him again. He could call any day from 8am to 9pm.

He wouldn't.

"Have a nice day." he said and hung up.

Phone call number three was his mother.

"Joyce?" He snapped.

"Who's Joyce?" His mother asked.

"Mom. I've told you not to call me during business hours."

"You work from home your business hours are whenever you want. Who's Joyce?" She sounded suspicious. Say what you want about his mother, she wasn't stupid.

"She's a client. I helped her and a friend look into a…" how did he even begin to explain what they'd done this summer. "…smuggling ring that was running through a local mall. I have information about her case and I need this line open."

"Don't lie to me. When are you coming to visit the new house? I've finished the guest room. The weather's lovely this time of year and-"

"I can't, even setting the case aside, I've got someone staying with me while he recovers from an injury."

"An injury?" She sounded alarmed. "What kind of injury? Why can't your friend stay at his own place?"

"He's not a friend, mom," She had placed a funny emphasis on the word friend. Murray did the same, "he's an informant who helped me with Joyce's case, I told you-"

She clicked her tongue, it sounded incredibly loud over the phone. "Always you hang around the wrong people, Murray."

He sighed. "The chess club of my high school wasn't the wrong people, mom, you just didn't like Mrs. Peterson."

"Now that's not fa-"

"Goodbye mother."

He hung up, ignored the niggling guilt, and paced the living room. It'd been three hours. She was probably at work. Finally he just dropped into the chair beside the phone and let his head drop back to stare at the ceiling.

"_We're out of juice._"

Alexei was pouting in the doorway. Murray sighed, nodded, then recorded a new message for his answering machine while Alexei smirked and played with the van's keys. Asshole had him wrapped around his finger and they'd only known each other for a month and a half. At least it looked like Murray would have company for this grocery trip. Maybe they'd have real cheese this time.

When they got back there was, of course, a message from Joyce.

"Jesus, Murray, you terrorize my son all morning and then you're not even home when I call you? What do you want? What do you mean there's SOMETHING? Why do you have to be so vague? You better call me back quick I'm not gonna sit up all night waiting for you to ca-" and then the machine beeped and cut her off. He really needed to invest in an ansafone with a longer message recording.

The return call was short. Short and Loud just like Joyce.

And, short phone call story short; They were driving to Hawkins.

Alexei twisted in his seat for the third time, glancing into the back of the van. "_Is that comfortable?_" He asked.

"_No._" The mattress he'd stuffed into the back was anything but. It was twenty years old, and the springs in the center had collapsed into a small pit that sucked you in no matter where you laid down to sleep. It was okay if you put your head toward the back, but if you reversed the position it would pull you away from the head of the bed and your feet would knock over the edge.

"Hmm." Alexei twisted back, fiddled with the radio dial.

Didn't matter, Joyce made it clear she had expectations for the next week or two, and that bed was going to get used one way or another. They'd packed a bag full of extra clothes; Half of Murray's closet had been rolled into the bag alongside the few things Alexei had bought or claimed firmly as his. The second, smaller bag was full of Alexei's drugs and Murray's vodka. They'd had to prioritize.

"_American radio all sounds the same._"

As if to disprove him, the tuner landed on a country station. Alexei’s face twisted into an expression of deep disgust.

"_There's a box of __cassettes__ in the glove compartment if you want to find something in there._"

"_It's all old shit, like your records, yes?_" He'd insulted Murray's music before, but he couldn't help but notice that Alexei began digging for the cassettes anyway. Not so shit, then. Just old. Better than the radio, at any rate. Murray rolled his eyes, waited for Alexei to pop something in and bumped up the volume to drown out his thoughts and fill the long drive to Hawkins.

Joyce was standing on the front patio, arms crossed and her face held in an expression she must have thought looked stern. She sort of looked like a toddler pouting. She brought her right hand up to take the last drag of her cigarette, then tossed it down, stomped it out and nodded toward the house. "Get in here."

The house was cleaner than the last time Murray had been there. He tried not to think about the aftermath of their incursion into the mall and the small drinking binge they'd undertaken together in the wake of the death they'd seen. Murray still felt guilty about it. They'd both been grieving Hopper, sure, but more than that Murray had been thinking of Alexei, too. He'd still been sleeping on her couch when the hospital called.

His friend had miraculously come back from the dead.

Joyce's hadn't.

It was also clear she'd gathered the troops. Or most of them. Will and his friends, and her older son Jonathon were all there, waiting for them.

Dustin grinned, "Hey bald eagle."

"_What was that?_" Alexei asked.

"_Nothing._" Murray cleared his throat, "What do you want, Atreyu?"

"Uh. Was that supposed to be an insult? Cause Atreyu's pretty cool, dude, I didn't know you thought so highly of me."

Murray scowled and ignored the soft laughter from behind him. Then they were surrounded by a flock of children and Alexei was blinking in confusion at them all. It was one thing to know that Joyce was constantly herding an entire pack, and another thing entirely to see them all crowding closer.

Joyce sat down in the center of her couch and made a "gimme gimme" motion with her hands. Alexei tossed the map onto the coffee table, letting it unroll to reveal the glaring red Xs. A hush fell over the room. Then Max said, "Point Pleasant?"

"Are you guys going to hunt the Mothman?" Will asked.

"We're not hunting anything."

"Oh yes you are." Joyce said. "Look. Everything is contained within the north east and mid west, but what if it's spreading? We can't just let that continue, what if it spreads to the entire country?"

"They're just points of interest, Joyce, not confirmed gates."

"I mean, people report weird stuff like the Mothman all over the country." Lucas said.

"Bigfoot." Dustin suggested.

"The Ohio frog man." Jonathon said. The children all shot him a confused look.

"_Why are all the marks in this area?_" Murray asked.

Alexei shrugged. "_We're __Russian.__ We didn't look into anything too far south. We didn't want to deal with the weather._"

Murray nodded and considered the map for another moment, "_So you don't have anything to do with the __UFO__ sightings out west?_"

Alexei was trying not to smile, but it was obvious in the way his cheeks pressed up into the bottom rim of his glasses. "_I'll tell you later._"

He sighed and turned back to the others, "He says they didn't bother looking anywhere else."

The kids had fallen fully silent again, all eyes watching Alexei like some kind of fascinating new pet. "So you're like, really Russian." Dustin said.

"You spent a week chasing after Russians just a month ago." Jonathon said with a frown.

"Yeah but we didn't know any of them."

"Yes. He's really Russian."

"You could reach Three Rivers by midnight." Joyce said.

It wasn't a suggestion, but before Murray could argue Alexei said, "_I want to talk to the girl._"

They set up in the kitchen, Eleven on one side flanked by Mike and Max, each one glaring like they'd been brought in for questioning by the cops. Murray and Alexei sat opposite, Murray translating and Alexei taking notes. They'd already gotten a detailed account of each move the upside down had made against them before, and how they'd "defeated" it. Alexei had underlined the word "fire" several times; another line for every time it was brought up in conversation.

"When you shut the gate, what did it feel like? How did you do it?"

"What does he need to know that for?" Mike asked.

God he was an overprotective brat, wasn't he? "Call it professional curiosity." Murray snapped.

Alexei frowned between the two, the motion almost perfectly mirroring Eleven's own confused glance. "It hurt." she said, "It felt like pulling a muscle but." she tapped at her temples.

"Like a migraine." Murray suggested.

She frowned but nodded. "Like shutting a door but there are so many ways that it opens? You have to stick each bit together, and you have to work on it all at once." She held her hands in front of herself and clenched her fingers in the air. If Murray really had to describe it to someone he would have said it looked like she was grabbing for invisible breasts. "Had to wrap it in energy. With my mind, I wrapped it in energy and then smashed it together." She moved her hands closer to show what she was trying to say.

Murray bit down his own commentary and translated for Alexei who was also looking at the girl's hands with a frown. He tilted his head slightly, as if viewing it from another angle might make more sense. Maybe it did because he asked, "_Like a pottery wheel?_"

"A pottery wheel?"

She shook her head, "I don't understand."

"It's a round slab that you put clay on and then it spins really fast," Mike said. He held his hands out just like Eleven, "You can press in on the clay and change the entire shape without moving your hands as much."

"Maybe. But it doesn't move."

"_Ask her where it felt like she was __flexing__ a muscle._"

Murray did, and she pointed to a different part of her head than before. She traced a line on either side from the back of the crown of her head and around to her temples, then back up.

Alexei scribbled another note down then drew a little sketch of the brain and circled the path she'd traced on herself. "_Where does the energy come from?_" Murray shot him a look and he shrugged, "_I'm almost done._"

"Okay, last question. Where does the energy come from, when you use it?"

Elevens eyes widened at that. She blinked down at the table then glanced around the room. "Everywhere."

Apparently Alexei didn't need that one translated. He wrote it down and then muttered a soft little, "_fuck_."

He chose to ignore the children for a moment and focus fully on Alexei, "_What are you thinking?_"

"_Well it could be the electromagnetic field-_"

"_No, what's the point of asking all of this?_"

He bit his lip and gave a weak smile. "_Maybe we could reverse engineer it?_"

Murray shook his head and knocked a hand on the table, "Thank you children, you've been very helpful."

"Did he say that?" Max asked.

"I'm saying it. Please go away now."

She rolled her eyes and raised her hands in that way kids do, and the three of them pushed away from the table, chairs scraping over the linoleum as they went and muttered complaints bouncing around between the three as they filed out of the kitchen. Murray removed his glasses to rub at the little nodes near the corner of his eyes where his head aches always began. It was maybe a little overly dramatic, but it felt good. He put his glasses back on and leaned close, "_You can not seriously want to try and go visit all of these towns and fix their problems._"

"_Why not? We're not doing anything else._"

"_You are healing. From a gunshot wound._" He pressed a firm finger to his shoulder and pushed Alexei back into his chair. "_You nap four times a day._"

"_Three tops._" Alexei pouted, "_And only when I'm bored. I can nap in the car._" He smiled, "_and working on this will give me something to do._"

"_Those brats will be back in school within the week._"

Alexei frowned, "_What? No, not them. Just us._"

Murray didn't know what to say to that. He felt entirely unqualified for the task. But a road trip. A road trip with Alexei who approached everything new with an excitement Murray was almost entirely unfamiliar with. He hadn't traveled outside of the Indiana/Illinois area since the late 60s, and despite the shitty situation Murray wanted to say 'fuck it, why not?'

Instead he flailed a hand and groaned.

"Do you need a beer?" Joyce asked from the door. He glanced up and there she was, the room behind her hidden from view by the stack of heads leaning around the door frame to watch them. He heard Mike whisper "shit" as they all scrambled back out of view.

"Yes, please."

She gave them each a bottle and joined them at the table. Murray considered the label, the alcohol percentage (less than 4) and decided not to fight Alexei on it as the man quickly grabbed his and took a long drink. "You two…seem like you might have a plan?" She asked with a crooked smile.

Murray said, "No" and Alexei said, "Da, plan."

Joyce smiled into her own beer and looked toward his notes.

"He wants to design a device that might do what Eleven can do. Close gates with telekinesis." He saw the way her eyes widened and added, "Don't get your hopes up. Her explanations were vague at best. I assume the science of it is too. If it were doable I think we'd have heard of someone figuring it out before human LSD experiments had to come into play." He rolled the bottom rim of his bear around on the table. The gentle hum of glass on wood settling his nerves. "If we went to investigate. IF," he emphasized, "The best we'd be doing is finding a way to report on it in a way that would get the issue solved and not make us look like idiots. The only people who would buy the truth is the Weekly World News and everyone knows they're horse shit."

"Like what you did last year." She said.

"Oh," he took a sip of beer to stall, "did Jonathon tell you about that?"

She gave him a pointed look and a nod.

"Ha." He gave a weak grin and drank the rest of his beer.

"_Her son keeps staring._" Alexei muttered. Murray followed his gaze and caught Will looking away.

Not very subtle, these kids.

"_You're a good __Russian.__ You're like a unicorn._" Alexei shot him a glare. Murray sat back in his chair, tried to take another sip of beer and remembering that his own was empty, grabbed Alexei's. "_He has more reason than the rest to worry about this thing spreading._"

"_Maybe._" Whatever he was thinking, he gave the kid a wave the next time he looked over.

Joyce grabbed another round of beers, then offered, "Well, anything I can do to help..."

In the end she gave them three extra pillows to fill the mattress pit with, a couple of Bob's old shirts he'd left behind to help bulk up Alexei's limited wardrobe, and then handed them each a twenty like she was giving her kids their allowance and sending them out to play.

"You have my number if you need me." She said at the door.

They both nodded, then stood stiffly as she gave them each a hug. It was sweet, but neither of them knew what to do with the affection.

She'd offered to let them camp out in her drive way, but with Eleven staying with her, and the kids all hanging around she had no couch or spare room to offer. They decided instead to just drive on to Three Rivers. They could make it by 1am or, more likely, they could stop at a hotel along the way. Anything to avoid the van pit for another night.

Alexei clicked at something plastic in the passenger seat. Murray glanced over, glanced back to the road then did a double take.

"_Where did you get that?_"

Alexei pulled the hand held radio closer to his face and squinted through the dark to read the labeled dials. "_The curly one gave it to me._"

"No."

"No?"

"_No._" Murray grabbed the radio. At the next light he shoved the antenna down, turned it off, and tossed it into the back. "_You'll thank me later._"

Alexei snorted, shook his head and then turned to look out the window to watch the, '**Now leaving Hawkins, Come back soon!**' sign fly by. 


	2. Episode Two: YES M!CH!GAN!

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I'm from Michigan, I'm allowed to make fun of it. The title and sign referenced is [here](https://www.onlinepokerreport.com/wp-content/uploads/2016/06/Michigan-Senate-Committee-passes-online-gambling-bill.jpg) and yes, from what I can tell that's what all the signs would have looked like in the 80s.

Alexei was still asleep when Murray returned from his errands. When he left he'd been star-fished across the bed, but now he was curled tightly on his side around one of the extra pillows the hotel had provided. Murray winced. Before he'd been shot Alexei had been a side sleeper, but now it made his chest hurt and his shoulders ache. It wasn't gonna be an easy day.

There'd been a small food cart set up in the parking lot of the strip mall Murray had stopped in. It seemed too early in the year for cider donuts, but the cart had been pumping the smell of cinnamon and fried cake out into the world and he hadn't tried to resist.

He set the bag down on the bedside table near Alexei, the cappuccino he'd gotten for him beside it.

It was a better way to wake up than an alarm, and like magic Alexei rolled over toward the smell and blinked awake. He frowned toward Murray, fumbled for his glasses, found them buried in the crack between the mattress and the headboard, and shoved them onto his nose. He squinted past the morning light and looked at Murray. He was quiet for a long moment. Then, finally, "_You cut your hair._"

Murray took a sip of his own coffee and nodded. "_Need to look professional if we're gonna be poking around asking questions._" It was the hair or the beard and Murray would rather be damned than part with the beard.

"_You look different. Younger I think._"

"_You think?_"

He shrugged, "_Could go either way. More mature, but less 'old hippie'. So. Younger._"

Murray frowned at the bed. Was that good or bad?

"_What time is it?_"

Murray pointed toward the bedside table. The doughnut bag had blocked the alarm clock and when Alexei finally pulled the greasy paper toward himself it revealed the glaring red 11:34am.

They'd stopped in Elkhart for the night, just shy of the Michigan border, and the last stop before they were really in it. Murray couldn't say why, but crossing that border felt like truly heading into the unknown. The North. Even though they would be heading farther north when they hit New England. Murray was still trying not to think of the little Vermont town they were heading toward.

Alexei hurried to get dressed, running from his suit case to the bathroom with a doughnut hanging out of his mouth. When he came back out his new shirt already had a spray of cinnamon and sugar over the front, and he shoved his pajamas into their suitcase in a wrinkled wad. Neither of them had done more than change and go to sleep. Nothing more to pack, they were able to leave quickly.

Alexei settled cross-legged into the passenger seat, cradling his coffee close like a shield against the rest of the world. It barely counted as morning anymore, but whatever time it was, Alexei wasn't an it person.

The suburbs of Elkhart stretched slowly into sparse patches, billboards and businesses making it clear what the town specialized in. They passed an RV sales lot. Then they passed an RV park. Both of which garnered a "_those look comfy_" comment from Alexei. They hadn't even slept in the van yet and he was looking to upgrade.

Murray rolled his eyes, ignored the suggestion and sped by the Michigan welcome sign. Specifically, the **YES M!CH!GAN WELCOME!** sign.

"_That's a very loud billboard._"

"_It's Michigan. They're just excited anyone would visit._"

From there it was only 40 minutes before they were pulling off the highway and heading through the outskirt businesses. He pulled into a small travel stop, a gas station and tourist shop combo where Murray could fill up the van and Alexei could get the Slurpee and snacks he'd been bugging Murray about since yesterday. He'd told Murray he'd never been on a road trip but he seemed very aware of just what the experience was all about. Murray gave him a 5 and let him wander away to marvel the delights of gas station sugar water.

When he went in to pay Alexei was lurking near the snacks and held up a pair of items: sunglasses with the American flag printed over the plastic frames and a t-shirt with so many colors on it it was almost blinding. It crudely depicted the lower peninsula of Michigan painted over a hand, a list of the five great lakes, and the words "High Five!" underneath.

"_Murray. Look._"

"_They're horrible._"

"_Can I have them?_"

"_Absolutely not._"

The sheriff chewed on his cigarette as he read over Murray's business card and private investigator's license. He glanced up over the rim of his sunglasses, looked toward the office window, "And your friend?"

Alexei was sitting on the curb outside, wearing his obnoxious shirt proudly, and the too small children's sunglasses forced onto his face over his larger eye glasses. He smiled around his Slurpee straw and waved.

Murray cleared his throat. "My cousin. From Europe."

The sheriff removed his sunglasses, tossed them to the desk with a clatter and gave Murray a stern look. His eyebrows looked as thick as his mustache. Which was to say, not thick at all. His eyebrows were a sparse light brown, and his mustache looked like the poor attempt of a teenager, though the man must have been nearing 50.

"I'm just having a hard time understanding why an Illinois based Private Investigator is interested in something like a sink hole."

Murray resisted the urge to play with his tie and nodded. "Last year I investigated the disappearance of a girl in Indiana. One of the women I worked with seems to think something similar is happening here. She thinks government or industrial negligence might be at fault." It was vague. It was so vague but the man only frowned and nodded. "I’m just looking whatever information you can give me, for her peace of mind."

"Well. And I mean no offense, but I doubt you'll be finding anything like that. However," and he reached into the top drawer of his desk, pulled free a file and set it in front of him. "The more attention we can get the better chance we find some of these kids." He pulled forth a small spread of Missing person's reports and held them out for Murray.

The news had mentioned that several people had been unaccounted for in the wake of the landfill. They hadn't mentioned they were all young women. Murray frowned, "The ages..."

"Slumber party. From what the parent's have told us they were celebrating their last summer together before going off to college."

"Shit."

The sheriff laughed. "Tell me about it. I've got nothing to tell the parents. There's no reason for one person to go missing in a sink hole, never mind four." He lit a cigarette and nodded to the papers. "Can't let you take those, but we've got posters. I'll give you the full set." He offered his pack but Murray shook his head, trying to make sense of the paper in his hands. It was a criminal record, tacked onto one of the girl's file. "Like I said, don't expect you'll find much. But if you do? Well, it'd be a weight off of my shoulders."

"I'm sorry, what's this? Vandalism of state park property?" It was the only line of the report that hadn't been redacted with thick black marker.

"Ah. Dawn. She was having a hard time for a while last year, found a-" he laughed, "a sink hole, of all things, in the preserve up on Buckhorn road. Strangest thing, it's a wet place, shoulda been full of water. But when she lit that match it caught like a dry pyre. It didn't come to anything, she wasn't in her right mind at the time, but had to report it anyway. She's been better."

Murray pictured Alexei's notes. The word fire underlined five times. "Funny coincidence."

"Funny world." The sheriff corrected.

"Has anything... strange happened in, say, the last couple years? Aside from the sink hole."

"That's a long chunk of time. Not sure how it's relevant." He stared at Murray a long moment then shook his head. "I'll go get you those posters."

Murray plastered a fake smile onto his face. "Of course, thank you."

He shifted in the uncomfortable chair as he waited, finally let himself loosen his tie for something to do with his hands, and stood with a smile when the Sheriff returned. The posters all looked identical besides the photocopied faces at the top. "Thank you for your time." The sheriff looked eager to end the conversation and nodded. Accepted the handshake. "Just one more thing, How do I get to your library from here?"

It occurred to Murray, as the Librarian led them to the small room where they kept the microfilm and newspaper archives, that this was going to be incredibly boring for Alexei. Even if given free reign of the library, there wasn't much he could read outside of the kid's section. And as he'd shown, that was a level he wasn't willing to stoop to.

Despite this, he smiled and nodded when the woman talked to him and when she asked him questions he shrugged and waved his Russian-English dictionary like a white flag. He then took a seat beside Murray at his own machine.

Murray took all the slides from 1983, and Alexei had 1984 so far. They agreed to start from either end and work toward the middle. They'd also had the librarian bring them the files of 1982. Just in case.

Murray skimmed through the articles as fast as he could, looking first for unusual headlines, then scanning the text of any suspicious article for the four names he'd gotten from the sheriff. Melanie Gray, Dawn Mitchell, Amber Hughes and Anna Butler. The soft shfft shfft shfft of microfilm sliding over glass filled the room, a steady beat occasionally joined by a second when Alexei had translated enough of an article to know it was useless. He had his own little cheat sheet, the names written down for him so he could scan the text the same way Murray was doing, and a list of key words.

Alexei tapped him on the shoulder and gestured to the screen.

"_We don't have to be quiet in here, you know._" Murray pointed out.

Alexei pointed to the screen again. The bold headline said, ‘**Russians Visiting Three Rivers?**’ It was dated last month.

"Huh."

Murray leaned over and read the article, ignoring Alexei's impatient tapping. When he was done reading he translated, "_Says a heavily injured Russian man was found wandering in the nature preserve by a couple of hikers. They brought him in for treatment and the town put him up in a hotel room. Mentions his injuries were unusual but it doesn't say how. By the time they got someone in to help translate he'd disappeared._" He hummed in thought, "_Maybe I should switch professions._"

"_Why?_"

"_A lot more demand for people who speak __R__ussian than I'd thought._"

They continued looking, until finally Murray found an article about Dawn Mitchell, though it didn't list her by name, and the incident in the preserve. The same preserve as where the Russian man was found. The article just said a local teen had started a fire in the wetlands. The fire department was able to keep the fire from spreading and the parks department was not going to press charges on the condition that the teen see a psychologist. The vandalism was not believed to be malicious, but instead motivated by "schizophrenic notions".

He continued flipping back and two months before that he found the headline '**Local Teen, Dawn Mitchell, Found alive after weeks missing!**'

He pointed to her name, "_What do you want to bet her house was at the center of the newest sink hole?_"

There was a '**Road Closed to Through Traffic'** sign posted over the right side of the road. A small detour encouraged them to turn right. They swerved slowly around it and moved on down the road.

A flimsy plastic barricade had been erected around the sides of the sink hole. The front and back had been draped in caution tape when whoever built the wall found themselves short a couple dozen barricades. The sink hole was massive, three properties across if Murray had to guess, and with it a chunk of the backing woods had fallen in.

The street was dead.

The driveways were empty, the lights inside the remaining houses were out, the parking spots littering the right side of the road were all abandoned. No one was visiting the park and the residential side had been cleared out. And there was no one lingering around the site.

Murray pulled to a stop at one of the park's trail heads. They stared at the ugly site. _"I thought there'd be scientists. Maybe a white tent. A couple cops At Least._"

"_Maybe it's just a sink hole._"

Murray snorted. "_When have we ever been so lucky?_"

Alexei shot him a look, "_I survived a bullet wound to the stomach._"

Murray nodded in acknowledgment. It was a nice thought, going into this. If they'd both survived the StarCourt Mall debacle then surely they could make it through this.

They pulled off the gravel and drove closer, slowly coasting by on the wrong side of the road. Murray rolled down the window and stuck his head through, trying to get a good look inside the pit. It didn't look too deep. It'd take a while to navigate the rubble, but they wouldn't be at risk of falling too far. When he sat back down Alexei's face was Right There, leaning into his space and completely uncaring that he was half in Murray's lap.

"_Doesn't look so bad._" his breath still smelled of artificial cherry, and Murray forced himself to keep his eyes on the road while Alexei looked. When he finally sat back in his own spot he said, "_We can climb in there._"

They drove on until they hit the end of the road and took a left. They found a dirt track that ran through the woods behind the residential front that they could park on later that night, and drove on to the closest hardware store they could find.

There was something comforting about the way every hardware store in the country smelled exactly the same. This one was a small corner store in the limited down-town area. The man behind the counter look like he'd opened it himself after moving down with the missus from the north pole. He glanced up from his paperback and gave them a nod.

"_Ask him if they have those matches with the really long stick, the kind for hearth fires._" Alexei started to walk away then, "_And those __chemical fire-__starter logs._" and then he turned a corner and was gone.

Murray turned to the frowning man seated behind the counter and translated.

"That Russian?" the shop-keep asked.

"Polish."

Murray gave him an innocent smile.

The man thought it over for a long moment, nodded, and pulled himself from his seat with a grunt. He led Murray toward the back of the store, into an aisle that smelled even more like cedar than the rest of the building and found the items requested. "We got firewood too, but some of the campgrounds around here get a little weird about bringing in your own. Better off just buying it from them."

"Right." Murray followed him back to the front. Camp fire. It sounded so innocent.

They found Alexei at the counter and any illusion the man had about them camping was likely dispelled then and there. Alexei had piled two large walking sticks, two flash lights, a disposable camera, a bottle of kerosene, a fanny pack, a small fire extinguisher and three bottles of spray paint into a lop-sided pyramid on the counter. All the paints were different shades of green. Murray's brain latched onto that fact in self defense. It was that or acknowledge that they now looked like a pair of criminals.

"_I'm not made of money, you know._"

"_We need it. What if we have to fight something?_"

Murray cleared his throat, smiled to the man watching them and pulled Alexei aside, "_We cannot buy all this or that man is going to call the cops to report the bomb we must be building,_" he hissed. "_One can of paint._" Alexei opened his mouth to argue, but Murray pulled him closer by the shirt and cut him off with a warning look. "_Kerosene or fire__-__log. You don't need the fanny pack._" he frowned, "_Why do you need the fanny pack?_"

"_To carry stuff._"

Ah. right. "_Choose your weapons, put away the rest._"

Alexei glared at him like he hadn't seen since they first met, turned the look on the shopkeeper, and grabbed up two cans of paint, the fanny pack, and grabbed the fire-log from Murray's hands to put back on the shelves.

Alone again, Murray smiled.

It was harder to find the dirt road in the middle of the night. The woods stretched over them on either side to block out the stars and moon and it was impossible to know where they were parking in relationship to the sink hole. Murray pulled off and to a stop. It hadn't looked so thick in the light of day. Alexei stuffed what supplies he'd been allowed into their smaller duffel bag.

Murray watched. Then, when the sound of the zipper came to and end Alexei said, "_Let's do this._"

He grabbed his things (a flashlight, the camera, and his shotgun) and locked up the van.

They slipped into the night and hiked toward the other side of the woods. When they popped through the other side it was obvious they'd moved too far south. They followed the tree line back north until their flashlight's caught the edge of the plastic barricades. Without speaking they shut their lights off and made the rest of the walk in the dark. Out of the woods their eyes had an easier time adjusting.

They ducked beneath the caution tape and stared down the cliff of debris.

It wasn't easy, but the sink hole had had four days to settle, and the walking sticks helped them stabilize whenever they stepped on a loose piece of rubble.

"_Murray._" Alexei whispered.

Murray glanced over and watched as Alexei dipped the end of his walking stick into a small hole and pulled it out, covered in a thick slime. The sticky threads stretching like spider web between the stick and the ground.

"_Schizophrenia, my ass._"

They finished their descent and stood together in the center. Rubble rose on all sides, framing the sky like an ugly bubble. To their left the entire peak of a house's top floor, roof, and attic window jutted out of the ground. Murray stared at the window a long moment, like someone might peek out and wave. Nervous energy itched at his skin, raising the hair on his arms and turning every light breeze into ice. They were like fish in a barrel.

"_Let's make this quick._"

They started pushing away boards and insulation. They found more strange pockets of slime, but nothing like a source. Finally they uncovered a wide patch of kitchen floor stretched over the center of the pit. Alexei took on side and Murray grabbed the other. It was a wide piece, but the building materials had been cheap, and they tossed the chunk of linoleum aside.

And there it was. A foreign, fleshy gate not unlike the one in Hawkins, though the shape…Murray bit his tongue.

"_Ugh. It looks like an asshole._"

Murray sighed. It did. The hole was an ugly puckered thing. Either someone else had sealed it shut like that, or it was holding itself closed. Like a sphincter to hell.

Murray pulled the disposable camera from his pocket, clicked his flash light on and then bit down on the end of the handle, trying to keep the light pointed toward the gate while he took a couple pictures. The loud rattle of metal and canvas dropping to the ground ruined the shot Murray was taking. He jumped, the torch fell out of his mouth and clattered to the ground. It illuminated the gate in stark light and shadow. Murray took another photo and looked to Alexei.

He had dropped the duffel and was crouched over it and rifling through, one hand already shaking a can of spray paint while the other found and pulled out the long canister of matches.

"_What are you doing?_"

Alexei brandished the un-struck match and held the paint can behind it, "_Flame thrower. Gate's not too big, maybe we can just melt it shut._"

"What? _No, __We can't do that._"

Alexei stopped, frowned up, "_What else are we here for if we can't torch it?_"

"_There's still people missing, what if they're..._" he gestured to the gate. "_In there. They need an exit._"

Alexei stared at the gate a long moment, then shuddered and started back to shaking the spray paint. "_A __risk we'll have to take._"

"_You cannot be serious._"

"_Murray._" he snapped, "_The air over there is toxic. There are monsters that will eat anything living they come across_." He licked his lips. "_It's been four days._"

"_Will was gone longer._"

"_Will was very fucking lucky._"

They stared at each other in silence until finally, with nausea bubbling at the back of his throat, Murray nodded. Alexei struck the match head against his jeans, lifted the spray can, and above them another beam of light flashed over the rubble in their periphery.

They both froze.

"Hey!"

Like the gunshot at the start of a race, the startled voice echoed around them and signaled them to run. The match fell to the ground, Alexei lunged to grab their bag, and Murray was running toward the wall closest to the forest.

"Stop! This is a crime scene!"

Shit, was it?

Murray tripped on an uneven slab of concrete, scraped the knuckles gripping his walking stick, and heaved himself back up. Alexei shot ahead of him, giggling, the absolute mad man. He heard another shout behind him, the sound of shifting rock seemed a clear sign of pursuit.

He heard a curse behind him.

With a jolt Murray realized he'd left the gate spot-lit with his flash light, and right on cue he heard a soft, "what in the world?" behind them.

The sounds behind them were slowing down and they booked it, Alexei grabbed his hand as he stumbled again, and hauled him over the edge and toward the woods. They'd traded one difficulty for another. The ground was steady but not flat, and they had no light to see by. Alexei pushed a branch aside and when he was through it slapped Murray in the face.

Bastard was still giggling, and the farther from the sink hole they got the harder it was to bite down on his own laughter. Something in the forest leaped away from them. Probably a deer.

Alexei cackled. "Ah, ha, ah ah _ow ow ow. Fuck._" But the laughter didn't stop entirely until they reached the van and his mouth was busy downing a couple of ibuprofen. They really needed to leave. There was no way of knowing if the cop had called back up. If he was still distracted by the gate. If it even was a cop that had caught them. They had to get out of town but Murray's heart was racing and his hands were shaking on the wheel, so instead they sat together in the dark trying to catch their breaths.

And then Alexei laughed again.

"_What?_" Murray snapped.

"_You've got shit in your beard._" Then he felt fingers picking at his face and Alexei muttered, "_hold still._" Alexei dropped a couple leaves to the floor, then grabbed something that snagged hard enough to make Murray wince. "_Shit, sorry, __sorry__._" And then his fingers gentled and Murray, fuck it, just let himself enjoy the feel of it. He closed his eyes and tried to ignore the adrenaline racing through his veins.

Alexei gave a little "aha!" and held a small piece of bare pine branch up for Murray to see. "_Do you think big foot has this problem?_"

Murray started the van and stretched his fingers from the death grip they'd had on the wheel. "_Probably._" If he had nightmares about giant ape men covered in curly beard hair like some mutated black sheep later tonight, he was going to kill Alexei.

They drove until they'd crossed multiple county lines, then swerved south toward Ohio, and stopped at the first 24-hour diner they found. It was just off the highway, the flickering sign beckoning them in like moths to a flame, and the spinning sign out front advertised the attached gas station even though it was clear as day surrounded by a parking lot full of lights.

They collapsed into the vinyl booth and Murray immediately started writing notes into the yellow legal pad he'd brought from the van. The tabletop was a bright glittery blue, which clashed with the yellow and made Murray's eyes hurt. He kept writing.

"_What are you doing?_"

"_Writing. While it's still fresh._" He tapped the pen against his temple.

Alexei leaned closer over the table, watched him write another paragraph then asked, "_Do we go back?_"

Murray shook his head. "_They definitely saw the gate. Probably us too. No way it's gonna be unguarded next time._"

They both fell silent again. Murray wrote.

Alexei had slumped to rest his head against the backboard and shut his eyes, so they both startled when the waitress cleared her throat. She gave them both a sympathetic look and tapped her pad. "What can I get you, boys?"

Murray ordered a reuben, and Alexei politely pointed to a picture of waffles smothered in whip cream and strawberries. They both ordered coffee and their waitress kept them topped up with an uncanny efficiency that spoke of years of experience. They ate in silence and Murray stared bleary eyed at Alexei's chest. First he was trying to make out any sign he'd reopened his bullet wound, then he was taking in the colorful blue splash of a lake labeled 'gun lake.'

"_I can't believe you spent Joyce's twenty on that._" Murray said, staring at the bright shirt.

"_Y__ou can spend your twenty on dinner._"

Murray had more than one twenty in his wallet. And it probably wasn't the same one she gave him, but it felt like Joyce's twenty when he handed it over to the waitress.

It was nearing 4 in the morning when they pulled into a KOA outside of Hillsdale.

"_That's not how you spell _campground."

"_Nope. Welcome to_ Amerika." He enunciated the K and hoped the joke came across.

He read over the posted rules and check in information and barely processed the instructions. He'd done it once before. The rules probably hadn't changed in the last 15 years. Hopefully. They parked in a free campsite and sat. The clock read 3:49.

"_That's day one. What are we feeling?_"

"_Regret._"

He nodded and went to pay the overnight fee.

The office had what looked like a napkin rack full of envelopes and paperwork. Murray filled out the little overnight slip and said goodbye to another 20 dollars. Something metal rattled while he was signing the agreement and his signature scratched into an illegible scribble with a lurch. The sound that followed turned his knees to rubber. The cops could make fun of him all they liked, but Murray knew alien's existed, and more than that he'd seen the proof of extra-dimensional monsters.

Nothing from this earth could be responsible for that noise.

A soft, strange, "woop woop."

Murray swallowed, sealed the overnight fee into the envelope on autopilot, and shoved it into the admissions slot. Then he slowly stepped toward the far side of the building.

Another, "Woop whoop. Woop." and then a high pitched chattering noise followed.

Murray closed his eyes, shored his courage, and turned the corner.

Murray froze.

The raccoon hanging out of the trash can froze.

On the roof three small kits chattered nervously and watched as their mother and one bald idiot stared each other down.

Murray sighed.

The raccoon scrambled up over the metal lid and climbed up the service ladder to her babies.

Murray rubbed his hands over his face and tried to calm his heart rate. He counted to six as he inhaled, held it, then exhaled for another six. Breath and repeat. Don't have a panic attack in the middle of a family campground. He walked back to their campsite, slid the van's door open and climbed in beside Alexei.

He already looked half asleep as he frowned and shuffled to his side of the mattress, "_What took you so long?_"

"_I don't want to talk about it._"

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Yes! Raccoons do make a strange Whoop Whoop noise sometimes, and having heard it in the middle of the night out of no where I can confirm that even I, grumpy skeptic, had a moment of "oh shit aliens".


	3. Episode Three: Exit Point

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Sorry I'm posting this later than intended and a little bit more rushed than the last two. You know how brains are, as soon as you set a schedule or deadline they're like "Actually, fuck you. We want to think about Cowboys now."

Murray woke up to a shaking mattress and grumbled complaints. It felt like a sauna in the van; they'd slept through the morning and the dark purple paint was soaking the sun in like a sponge. Alexei had sat up which meant when Murray rolled over to get a look at what he was doing the pit dragged him in so he was practically wrapped around the man's hip. He watched Alexei wave his hands in front of his face and look around frantically.

He twisted to look at Murray. "_My glasses aren't working._"

Murray groaned, rolled over to slide the van door open to let in the light and fresh air, then sat up. He tossed the sheets aside and found Alexei's glasses. "_Hold still._" he said, then removed his own from Alexei's face and carefully replaced them with the right pair. "_I thought you were supposed to be a genius._"

Alexei squinted against the daylight, "_Not before noon._"

"_It's at least 1._"

"_Not before coffee, then._" He scratched at the stubble on his face. They really hadn't been thinking clearly when they'd packed for their trip. They'd known it would turn into something more than just a drive to Joyce's and back, but they hadn't brought anything like toiletries. No razors. No shampoo. But two days of stubble wasn't a bad look on him. Made it clearer that he was in his thirties.

Considering Murray had never seen it before, he knew it would be gone as soon as they had a chance to stop in a rite aid and buy actual necessities.

They stumbled past the families frolicking around the camp and showered as well as they could. Scrubbing the chilly water through their hair and hoping for the best. It's not why Joyce had sent Bob's extra shirts with them, but they used them in place of actual towels, then changed, still damp, into the most comfortable clothes they had. Ohio was a big, dull state, and it was going to be a while before they reached the next town. It should have been the perfect opportunity to stop and see stuff along the way, but it was Ohio. The best view they'd get was a particularly nice corn field.

After they figured out their path Murray taped up the map to the inside of the sliding door. Along the top he taped up the four missing person's posters, slowly putting together his wall of clues. It was cliche, but it really did help him think when he could see everything up on one surface. He couldn't use thumb tacks on the van, but maybe they'd stop at an office supply store and see what they could find to replace the red strings and connective tools.

Alexei himself seemed inspired by the little display and grabbed up Murray's legal pad and pens, the beginnings of a sketch and notes becoming clear as they drove out. They looked very sloppy. Murray wasn't sure if it was because it was a work in progress or if the lack of coffee was to blame.

If he could find some food maybe he'd find out.

McDonald's was a sad excuse for breakfast even under the best circumstances. These weren't the best. They'd stopped serving breakfast several hours ago, so breakfast was burgers and chicken nuggets. A milkshake split between them and the oldest, saddest coffee that Murray had ever tasted.

Alexei was blindly shoving fries into his mouth while he watched a group of kids force their friend to go down the playground slide. He was crying and looked like he wanted to do anything else. Their mothers were sat in the corner of the playground outside and ignoring the commotion. He swallowed and said, "_Looks like fun._" Murray didn't agree, and expressed his doubt with a grunt. "_Think they'd care if I went in?_"

Murray scoffed. "_You're adorable; you could get away with it. But when you hurt yourself and I have to come in to get you out of the hamburger tower someone will call the cops._"

He pouted and drank his milkshake.

Murray rolled his eyes, "_The playground is there to distract the children of stay at home moms while they meet up with their stay at home mom friends and bitch about their husbands._"

Alexei snorted. "_Just like Russia._"

Murray grinned. "_Oh yeah?_"

"_Less McDonald's play grounds, but same wives. Married couples are the same everywhere, no?_"

"_Kinda fucking sad._"

Alexei laughed and nodded.

In the end there hadn't been much point in asking around at the Police Station. Nothing had happened recently that they could ask about, and even with Alexei dressed in professional duds and wearing his sternest expression, the secretary only stared at them. No audience with the Chief. No audience with the Sheriff.

The most they'd gotten was a raised eyebrow and a judgmental glare from behind a pair of thick cat's eye glasses.

Then the library hadn't had a full archival set up, and they were left at a public table with a stack of recent newspapers that were still being processed. The going was slow and Murray's hands were smudged with newsprint ink within an hour. They weren't having any luck in that either. Chillicothe seemed, for all intents and purposes, a plain ordinary Ohio town. The strangest thing they'd found in the papers was that the unusual amount of rain that summer had pushed back the corn harvest by a month. Unusual and bad, yes. The aftermath of a gate between worlds opening up beneath their town, unlikely.

Alexei had stopped flipping through pages a couple of minutes ago, and as Murray unfurled the latest paper he ducked down behind it to whisper, "_We've picked up a tail._"

"_What?_" Murray hissed. The paper in his hand gave a sad crunch as his hands tightened in fear. He glanced out the window. Like something out of a cop film, there was a big service van right outside. He couldn't see anyone climbing the telephone beside it, but there was a man checking over a clipboard near the passenger side. A weak disguise.

Alexei nudged him, pushed the top half of the paper down and pointed toward one of the tables farther down the far wall. The young woman sitting there glanced back to her book.

"_Oh. Really?_"

He nodded. "_I saw her riding a bike behind us on the way here._"

Murray bit down on a laugh. She looked very focused on her book. Her thick brows and widows peak forming an overly acted intense frown. Murray copied it. "_Does she look familiar?_"

They both stared another beat, then Alexei cursed. "_She's one of the missing kids._"

Murray gave Alexei the paper and said, "_Keep on eye on her._"

He left and went to the van and found it. Amber Hughes, hair done up and clothes sparkling to make up for the uncomfortable grimace she'd given the camera. He grabbed the paper of the van door and went back inside.

Amber had moved, sat at their table and frowning at Alexei. She was waving her hands in a futile attempt at communication. Murray slammed the paper down on the table, catching both their gazes. She glanced to the poster.

"I never liked that photo."

Murray wasn't surprised, sat there in worn jeans and a KISS T-shirt she looked like a completely different person.

"What the hell are you doing in Ohio?"

"Where'd you find a Russian?" She asked.

Murray considered. Took a risk, "He was researching a gate in Indiana."

She considered that a long moment. "Gate." He nodded. She nodded. Alexei nodded, definitely knowing that word, and she said, "Lets go get a coffee. We can talk in the park." She stood up, took a pile of the papers and added, "You're buying."

He bought her lunch too. He’d never seen anyone eye pre-packaged sandwiches from the gas station like they were a three course meal before. Both Murray and Amber bought black coffees and Alexei surprised him by filling up a to go cup of vending machine cappuccino instead of the Slurpee he'd come to expect. It would be the powdered stuff. Pure sugar and not at all like the coffee he'd bought him yesterday. He'd love it.

They took their coffee to go and held court at one of the picnic tables on the edge of the public park. Murray was getting tired of watching children on playgrounds, but at least the weather was nice. Finally cooling off as the summer gave up it's hold.

"So, you guys call it a gate?" she asked around a mouthful of ham and cheese sandwich.

Murray nodded. "What do you call it?"

"The hell hole." She said it like it was obvious. Maybe it was. She looked amused as she watched Murray translate. "My girlfriend Dawn's been dealing with them for a year now. They just keep popping up."

Murray paused on the translation of 'girlfriend'; he'd always hated when women referred to each other as such. Without knowing her better he couldn't gauge which translation to pick. Amber gave him a pointed look as he slowed. Well then.

Alexei, bless him, carried on like there'd been nothing unusual about Murray's translation, though he'd gone on a guess and used the romantic one, and asked, "_How did she get here?_"

"So how are you in Ohio?"

She chewed her food and glanced around the park. "Hellhole opened up right under us. Dawn disappeared so I went in after her. It didn't seem like we could get out the way we'd come in so we just..." she shuddered, "'we walked. Took this... tunnel as far as we could until we found another opening. We both went through. I know we did, but I'm here and she's..." she shrugged, "somewhere else I guess."

"How long were you walking on the other side?"

"I don't know. But it didn't feel like walking all the way to Chillicothe. Didn't feel like two days either." She finished her coffee, stuffed the sandwich wrapper into the bottom and tossed it all into the nearest trashcan. "Thought I'd stick around town a while, see if Dawn showed up, but I haven't heard anything. And now I'm out of money so." she shrugged.

"What about the other two? Melanie and Anne, did they go down into the tunnel with you?"

She frowned and shook her head. "They're missing too?"

He nodded. She shook her head and sighed. "I don't know. They never knew what Dawn was getting into. Just thought she'd lost it after she went missing." She must have caught some idea of Murray's thoughts, cause she smiled, "Didn't matter what they thought was wrong with her, not a lot of people stuck around after she tried to set fire to the hole in the swamp. She didn't trust them enough to show them, but it meant something that they cared."

"_Where'd you get the bike?_" Alexei asked.

Murray translated and Amber grinned, "Honestly? I stole it out of some guy's garage."

"Wonderful." Murray rubbed at his eyes. This was a nightmare. "Where did you come out?" she smirked and Murray did not have the energy to play this game. "The gate. Can you get us to it?"

"Yeah sure. Why?"

He nodded to Alexei. "He wants to set it on fire."

She bit her lip. "I can take you there but the fire might be a problem."

"Why?"

"It's in a cemetery."

Grand View cemetery was a sprawling nightmare. High on a hill and spreading wide in multiple roads and green lawns dotted with headstones going back a couple hundred years, if Murray had to guess. They had argued for a good 5 minutes whether to go in the day or night.

In the end they agreed that a fire would be more noticeable at night, particularly if the gates were closed. Plus, the bus station didn't run after 10, and Amber had made it clear she had no interest in spending any more time with them than necessary. They'd offered to get her a ticket home and she'd been more than happy to accept it and be on her way.

There were visitors and there were tourists. Murray felt like the purple van was a giant target drawing attention right to them. Amber sat cross legged on the mattress in the back and kept herself upright with a hand on either of the seats up front. "Don't worry, they'll all be visiting the older section." she said as they passed a group in shorts and sun hats. "Turn right up here." she led them away from the crowds, as promised, and soon they were stopped on the far edge of the cemetery, just in front of a newer looking mausoleum.

Alexei frowned. "_In there?_"

Murray just pointed to the door. He relaxed into his seat when she shook her head. "Well, yes." she added, "But there's a service door in the back. That's how I got out. Front door's locked down hard."

They drove a ways and parked in front of a large statue, close enough to get to, far enough to hopefully draw attention from their true target. They'd left that second duffel bag full of their gate gear, and walked in a close group to try and hide the fact they were carrying a whole lot of suspicious something toward the mausoleum. They left the shotgun in the car and as soon as they were standing in front of the metal doors Murray was hit with a sense of regret.

Something was moving in there.

"Ladies first."

"Fuck off."

Alexei ignored them both and opened the doors, the canister of matches shoved into his left pocket, and the can of spray paint shoved into the right, like a parody of a cowboy's pistol holsters. The metal doors clattered against the stone and echoed around the hill. Murray and Amber both tried to shush him. It was too late for that but neither of them could resist.

Alexei gave them a sheepish shrug and stepped into the dark. They shared a glance and followed with their flashlights held high.

It was smaller than Murray had expected. The walls were thick, sturdy to keep intruders out, and hopefully whatever came out of the gate would be kept in. The first level held only two coffins, a Mr. and Mrs. Buchanan. Between them was a stairway leading down to another level, for their children maybe. Crawling over the steps was a familiar fleshy vine. Murray didn't have a chance to voice his concern before Alexei was gleefully striking a match and spraying a gout of flame down the stairwell.

It billowed back toward them as a wave of heat, and down below something squealed in distress.

"Jesus." Amber hissed.

Something the size of a cat but shaped like a frog leapt out of the flames, its skin peeling and blackened with fire.

Amber kicked it. A hard punt that sent it slamming into the chained front doors of the mausoleum. It twitched sadly and she pointed to Alexei's flame thrower. "Keep that shit aimed at the stairs." As soon as Murray had translated she was across the room and stomping on the little body until it was indistinguishable from the rest of the gate's quivering tendrils.

There was a persistent squealing noise through it all, but nothing else burst out of the fire. They watched the little veins burn and shrivel back toward the lower level, and once the upper level was cleared Alexei stepped down with a laugh.

"Your boy is crazy." Amber said.

Murray pulled the fire extinguisher out of their bag, just in case, and nodded. "Maybe." He wasn't sure that his shoes wouldn't just melt on the hot stone, but he followed anyway. Careful steps down and into the blaring light of fire in the dark. It was difficult to see the gate through the flames, the chemicals in the paint turning the hottest parts of the fire purple and violent blue. Unnatural colors making the gate beyond look even more sickly and evil than usual.

It had grown out of the corner of the ceiling, uncaring of physics or the fact that the floor above had been as solid as any he'd seen before. It looked more like the one he'd seen beneath the mall, a gash through stone connected by strands of strange viscera and slime. Something else slid out of the opening, another small creature, but it didn't make it very far before it was burning up and the last of its life was leaving it in jerky movements.

Alexei's match was starting to grow too short for Murray's own peace of mind, so he moved closer, face turned from the heat while he tried to slip another match out of the man's pocket and lit it. He carefully held it out and held still as Alexei grabbed it with his ring and middle finger, then swapped it with the match he'd had in thumb and forefinger.

The spent match dropped to the floor with a sad fizzle.

The flame kept going. The air became almost unbearable with the smell of paint fumes and the heat of the fire. Amber ducked out and back into the upper level, and as soon as Murray spotted the upper half of the gate start to droop and melt he grabbed Alexei by the shoulder and gently pulled him back toward the staircase.

Alexei kept the fire stoked and like that they slowly moved out of the mausoleum, careful backward steps up and out with Murray leading the way and making sure nobody tripped. Or caught on fire.

"Think that sealed it?" Amber asked, as they finally closed the doors. She'd found a large fallen branch while they were in there burning, and it now sat wedged through the door handles. Hopefully it was strong enough to keep something in until the fire was finished.

"I have no idea." He asked Alexei, who just shrugged. "Fingers crossed, then."

"Think I can add Crematory Assistant on my resume now?"

"_I think you need to burn at least 6 bodies before you qualify._" Alexei said.

His listening comprehension was getting good. A little too good, considering the snide comments Amber kept shooting Murray. At least she wasn't sticking around much longer. Murray didn't want to think about what kind of night mare these two could become for him if they teamed up.

Murray translated the joke for him anyway.

They drove out and away from the cemetery, Murray's hands clenched around the steering wheel as they passed by the other visitors and through the front gates. Every minute passed with a growing sense of relief. They might have gotten away with it. Hopefully it stuck.

They'd settled on burger king for dinner. Cheap and just different enough from McDonald’s to keep Murray from hating himself. They kept Amber company as they ate in silence and waited for the greyhound bus heading back to Michigan to show up and unload the group coming in from Kentucky. Murray had forked over the 30 bucks for the ticket without complaint. He'd been saving cash for the day the banks inevitably failed, and even though it felt like they were flying through it at an alarming rate, he couldn't really bring himself to regret it as he watched the other two scarf down their burgers like they hadn't eaten in weeks.

"So where are you two heading after this?" Amber asked.

"West Virginia." Murray said.

"Point pleasant." Alexei tacked on with a smirk.

She perked up in her seat, eyes wide. "Mothman?"

"We're not hunting the moth man." Murray hissed.

"Sure." She nodded and ate a handful of fries, "But if you see him tell him I said hi. Maybe get his autograph for me."

The greyhound pulled into the parking spot they were waiting in front of and Murray muttered an, "Oh thank god."

She wiped her hands and stood to watch the riders disembark. "You'll keep an eye out for Dawn?"

"Of course."

She nodded. "Thanks." She didn't say anything more, and Murray gave Alexei a soft run down of the conversation while they watched the line to leave grow. Finally Amber waved and wandered away to joined the end of the slow moving line. No awkward goodbye's to be found here. Murray rolled his eyes and led Alexei away, waving as they passed and spent the rest of the wait in the van to make sure she got on the bus alright.

The tape rolled over the end of the song, buzzed faintly, and clicked off. The radio turned over to a local station and they both left it. About time they tried a bit of the local flavor, though Murray didn't have high hopes for the channel. It wasn't coming in as clearly as it should, and of all the Beatles songs to play, why Sun King?

The music faded away halfway through the song. Another odd choice, but thank god. A calm and soothing voice came over the airwaves, "Well many, many topics fascinate all of us here on Midnight Radio. The usual. The paranormal. The mysteries. The ghosts. You name it. UFOs, Bigfoot, creatures but also secret societies ranks way up there. In a moment..."

Alexei scoffed a laugh and turned to look out the window, leaving the channel as is.

"...tonight, we have a guest expert who has always questioned standard versions of history. Delved into ancient civilizations and the occult groups which managed them."

Murray wasn't actually sure he cared what the expert had to say on the topic. "_Hey, you never told me if you had anything to do with Roswell._"

Alexei snorted. "_Nothing to tell._"

"_Seems like it'd be right up your alley_."

Out of the corner of his eye he could see Alexei's head roll over the head rest, glasses reflecting the passing streetlights like a blinking stare. "_Nothing there to worry about._"

"_We just melted a monster from another dimension and you don't believe in aliens?_"

He shrugged. "_Sure I believe they exist. Somewhere, out there, far away and unlikely to give a shit about earth. A lot of effort just to sneak around and watch us. Could be they're experimenting with technology out there, but it's not alien._"

"_How do you explain all the UFO sightings?_"

"_People are stupid._"

Murray spluttered, "Fuck you, too."

Alexei grinned. "_Until very recently the southern U.S. border was entirely unguarded and un__-__monitered for air traffic. I'm sure the __R__ussians were responsible for some of those sightings. But I don't think there's a major player in the world that didn't take advantage of that weakness to do __reconnaissance._"

"_And all that redacted information is just about foreign infiltration?_"

Alexei nodded. "_I think your government would rather people think they're hiding an alien conspiracy than admit that they've let a security threat like that remain in place for so long. It has the added benefit of making their critics look like idiots._"

Murray hummed, "_I still don't trust it._"

"_Nothing wrong with that._"

He nodded, let the conversation die as they both listened to the man on the radio discuss the recruitment process of the Knights Templar. Murray suddenly found his voice incredibly annoying. What had at first seemed a calm and soothing manner of speaking now sounded dull and flat. Too slow. If what he was saying was true how could he sound so calm? "_Put something else in._" he said.

Alexei shrugged and popped the cassette out, replacing it dutifully into it's case before digging for something they hadn't already listened to once or twice. He shoved his hand in as far back into the glove compartment as it could go and came back with a blue cassette that Murray hadn't seen in a couple years. Alexei squinted at the cover. "Cultosaurus Erectus?" He stumbled over the pronunciation a bit. It didn't help that he was biting down a laugh."

The next morning Murray woke up the same as he had the day previous. The van too hot, the bed shaking and the sounds of a busy KOA camp outside. When he twisted to look behind him Alexei wasn't awake. He was shaking slightly, hands gripping the sheets like a security blanket. Murray swore and rolled over, shaking Alexei gently by the shoulder.

"_Alexei. Come on wake up._"

He didn't, but he did calm down a little. The trembling stopped and his hands loosened their grip, moving to grab hold of Murray's shirt instead. Murray sighed in defeat and dropped his head back to the pillow. He let Alexei curl a little closer and stared up at the roof. He debated opening the doors to let the van cool down, then heard a particularly loud kid shout and changed his mind.

Murray's stomach flipped uncomfortably as the pit dragged him in a little closer. It was probably just heartburn from eating garbage all day yesterday. He closed his eyes and firmly told himself it was heartburn. He could fix heartburn.

Beside him Alexei groaned and rolled over.

Murray liked to think of himself as being self aware.

He didn't think it was heartburn.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> So the radio station was originally going to be inspired by coast to coast AM, which wasn't broadcast on the east coast in the 80s, but i got the impression from wikipedia that there were other local channels that sometimes talked about similar topics. And then I didn't feel like actually writing anything for it so I copy and pasted a bit of the first transcript I could find and then changed the names lmao. So coast to coast am, please don't sue me I was just too tired to make something up.


	4. Episode Four: We're Not Hunting The Mothman

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> Hey everybody! This chapter's a good deal shorter than the rest, since things are getting a little hectic on my end. I'm gonna guess that the next couple of chapters won't be up as promptly as these first four since I'll be moving across country next weekend and I really don't know how that's going to affect my writing time yet. I'm still going to try and keep to the once a week posting but I'm not making promises. Just wanted to let you know so we're all on the same page :)

It turned out Point Pleasant west Virginia, for all the rumors and legends surrounding it, was a tiny strip of nothing town along the Ohio river. Murray and Alexei had to settle for a junky motel on the other side of the state line, their motel room sporting a balcony to look on at the gray river and the gray town beyond it. Hopefully it would look better when the drizzling rain moved past.

The drive from Chillicothe to Point Pleasant, and then back toward their motel had been relatively short, compared to their previous drives. They'd both foregone a second attempt at showering in the cramped stalls at the KOA, and took turns in the hotel shower. After being trapped in the car with one another for an hour and the quick trip into the rite aid for toiletries, the shower had felt like absolute heaven, no matter how weak the water pressure was in the old bathroom.

At least there was no end to the hot water.

Murray had let Alexei shower first, and then regretted it as the time stretched on. He'd watched two episodes of Cooking with Julia before Alexei was finally done, leaving the bathroom freshly shaved and followed by a wave of steam. He'd frowned at the opening film reel of The Joy of Painting with Bob Ross, then sat down on the end of his bed as if in a trance.

He was still sitting there when Murray was done, mouth open as Bob Ross hummed something about happy trees, and painted an outcropping of pines on the screen. Murray rubbed the small towel over his head faintly as he watched.

"_He's very good, no?_"

"_Mmhmm. There's always a moment it looks like he's fucked up, but then he turns it around._"

"_Yes! When he started adding clouds I thought he'd gone too far._"

Murray frowned at the screen. That would have been one of the first things he'd done. He shook his head, it was probably one of those left brain versus right brain things. Murray usually didn’t have a problem with the paintings until he’d started adding land. He shut the TV off and gestured for Alexei to follow.

Neither of them were particularly enthused, the forest they were going to drive through was much less idealized than the one Bob Ross had been painting.

They weren't really looking for the Mothman, but it seemed the thing to do in Point Pleasant. It was the most obvious area to search for unusual phenomena, and they agreed to start there. They hiked the nature preserve's trails, eyes and ears open for anything similar to what they'd seen so far, and after they were damp with the light rain and had found nothing, they drove into town proper.

They'd bought the most recent issue of the local paper to read while they ate gas station donuts and drank diet cokes, then moved on to the library to look at their records. "_We're not gonna find anything interesting._" Alexei admitted three hours in. "_We recorded some wild energy readings in the area, but that's it._"

Murray hummed. "_Maybe_."

"_There's a reason we didn't build the gate here._"

"_Were there similar energy readings in Hawkins?_"

Alexei hesitated, squinted at his monitor and did an odd nod and shake motion. Head bobbing side to side. "_Some, but they had a very clear source. Nothing like here._"

Murray shrugged and turned back to the archives. "_Then we keep looking._"

It was the first town they stayed in for more than a day. It was small and cozy and they had a real hotel room to return to so when the second afternoon rolled by without any leads, it was easy to shrug and stick around. Maybe they'd get lucky tomorrow. They ate at the local restaurants, Murray so tired of the fast food and gas station snacks they'd been eating that he didn't mind shelling out the money for real food with actual vegetables.

The current diner had pushed an old jukebox into the corner, and either it was set to play whole albums at a time without interference, or someone had shelled out the quarters to play all of Credance Clearwater Revival's 'Bayou Country'. It felt out of place, and Alexei kept tapping his pen along to the music while they waited for their food. Then he'd stop, look at Murray and then go back to tapping. Finally he asked, "_Did you go to Woodstock?_"

Murray froze. He didn't know how to answer that. Didn't know which was worse that he'd been too old for Woodstock or that he'd tried to go anyway. The thing is when you're 28 you still feel young and stupid, until your surrounded by actual young people and you find yourself wishing for nothing more than a cup of tea and a fucking nap.

"_The van I was driving broke down half way there._" He admitted.

Alexei grinned. "_How?_"

"_No idea. My friend insisted there was nothing wrong with the van and that I must have done something while driving it. Dumped me and the van on the side of the road to hitchhike the rest of the way._"

"_It was his?_"

"_Not after that._"

He snickered and returned to his notes.

Alexei had started carrying the legal pad around with him to fill with plans and blueprints instead of helping Murray search for a clue how Point Pleasant fit in with the rest of the towns. Murray's written Russian wasn't quite as good as his spoken, but he had a feeling that even if he'd been better at reading it Alexei's messy print would be nothing but gibberish to him. There was a sketch of a hand, which he understood, but over that Alexei had drawn a grid of interlocking lines and circles. And then the bottom half was full of mathematical equations.

Something at the bottom looked like English.

Murray took another bite of his omelet and leaned closer. At the bottom of the page, written upside down to face Murray were the words GO HOME. He blinked, the words were gone, and he dropped his fork to his plate with a loud clatter.

Alexei jumped and glared at him. A glance around the diner revealed that he wasn't the only one, and something about the men at the corner booth nagged at him. Murray had never put much stock in all the Men in Black theories. But those men looked very official. Polished shoes and dark suits out of place surrounded by the old 50's decor. Murray cleared his throat and gave everyone an apologetic smile.

When he glanced back to Alexei and his notes the text had changed. MEET ME AT THE MOTEL.

Murray closed his eyes, took a deep breath to keep cool, then glanced back. The message was gone and Alexei was writing on like he'd seen nothing unusual. Murray ate the rest of his food mechanically, not tasting the hash-browns or the eggs, barely noting the mushrooms as he chewed. As soon as the waitress came back around he requested the check and a to go box.

Alexei gave him a funny look. Murray pointed to his half eaten sandwich, "_We can take it to go._" he frowned and Murray shrugged, "_Trust me._" he was trying to keep calm, act cool so he wouldn't attract any more attention from the suited men across the way. If they'd been anywhere else, taking a road trip for any other reason, Murray would have at least tried to write it all off as his eyes playing tricks on him.

But here?

In a town that Alexei admitted had had weird energy spikes they couldn't explain, where stories of strange creatures and prophetic visions were common place? Murray couldn't get back to their motel fast enough.

But he kept up the facade of normalcy and smiled at the waitress while he paid, and didn't hiss at Alexei to hurry up while he filled his to go box. Well, he did do the last one, but he did it in the least suspicious way he could. "Hurry up, we have that meeting with the sheriff." he said aloud, in English.

Alexei frowned up at him. Slowed his actions down like an asshole.

"_What was all that?_" he asked as they got into the car.

"_I'm not sure._" he didn't know how to explain it, exactly. It occurred to him that if those men in the diner had really been tailing them, if they really were the men in black then would they have had the van tapped? He scanned the parking lot, but didn't see anyone else suspicious. "_Were those men in corner there when we arrived?_" he asked.

"_Which ones?_"

"_In the suits._"

Alexei frowned and tapped his fingers against the note book. Murray glanced over, caught the action, and beneath it the words, THE VAN IS NOT BUGGED.

Murray relaxed back into his seat. "_Alright, now this is going to sound a little off, but someone's talking to us. There._" he gestured to the notes and Alexei frowned down at the page, "_Quick little messages that are gone the next time I check._" he merged onto the highway that would take them back into Ohio, toward their motel. "_I think we're going to have company._"

Murray couldn't say what he was seeing. There was a man, but he was only the idea of a man. When he smiled it was huge, expressive, the impression of a smile without his face actually showing it. And he was sitting patiently at the small table set into the corner of the hotel room.

"You made it. I was worried I'd scared you off."

Murray just stared, mouth agape and trying to respond. Alexei just shrugged and said, "_No._" like he'd been the one expecting the company.

The man smiled. "It was a distinct possibility." The more he talked the more Murray realized it wasn't quite English. It was, but if Murray concentrated it also sounded like Russian. "You're looking for something, but you won't find it here."

Murray watched his mouth as he spoke, trying to determine how he could speak two languages at once, only to find he wasn't moving his mouth at all. Except that he was. And then the longer he looked the less it looked like a face. He felt sick. Murray slumped onto the end of the nearest bed with a groan.

"I'm sorry. This happens sometimes. Just try not to think about it too much."

Murray laughed and buried his face in his hands. Like it was just that easy.

"_Who are you?_" Alexei asked.

Murray glared at them both through his fingers. Just say it, he fucking dared him.

The man, no the thing, considered them for a moment. "You can call me Indrid. A man named me that in his book and it seems a nice enough name."

"_How are you talking?_" Murray asked, keeping to Russian for Alexei’s sake. It was going to bother him if he didn't get an answer soon.

"I'm afraid I don't have the proper anatomy for human language, so I simply project meaning into your minds and let your own brains do the translating. They're quite clever things, human brains."

It made some kinda sense. And Alexei looked fascinated. "_Are you doing the same thing to project the appearance of humanity?_" he asked.

Indrid grinned. "Yes!" He gestured to himself, the cobbled together impression of a human that seemed to change every time Murray looked back to him. "It doesn't work as well as language."

"_If we're looking in the wrong place, what are you doing here?_" Alexei asked.

"You have questions that I have answers to." He gestured to the legal pad Alexei was still holding in his hands. "May I?"

Alexei went so far as to sit at the other end of the table before handing the notes over. He leaned close as Indrid read them over, eyes bright and curious. Murray left them to it and went to the bathroom. He curled over the sink and splashed water over his face, trying to get his bearings back. He stared at himself in the mirror and sighed. Yeah, he looked like someone who'd just come face to face with a terrifying legend. Pale and wide eyed.

When he returned they were both hunched over the paper, each with a pen in hand and making marks on a single piece of paper. They must have been talking about something pretty complicated because Murray wasn't understanding all the words when Alexei spoke. "_But antiveshchestvo can't exist without canceling itself out._"

It was Indrid's own psychic response that allowed Murray to catch up with the conversation. "You're scientists have known there should be an equal amount of antimatter in your universe as regular matter, they just haven't discovered it in it's altered and stable state."

Alexei frowned, "_Wouldn't we be able to detect it?_"

Indrid smiled. Amused like a parent whose child has said something very silly. "Your people haven't even managed to explain the discrepancies between quantum physics and general relativity. Are you surprised there are other things they can’t explain?"

"_Doesn't change the fact I can't tap into it._"

And then Indrid's speech turned into a fuzzy whistle as he began to explain something so beyond Murray's own limited understanding of physics that his brain could not keep up with the thoughts. Alexei continued to nod, taking notes and asking questions that Murray could only translate half of. They continued like that, long enough for Murray to grow bored.

He grabbed his type writer from the van and set up his own little work station on his bed.

It wouldn't be publishable, but he began to write. The actual, first hand account of everything they'd done, both in Hawkins and here on this road trip, began to take shape in a tidy stack of papers at his knee.

It took him a while to realize that it was just him and Indrid. His eyes refocused to the rest of the room and Indrid shrugged. "He went across the street to get lunch."

Oh good. More gas station food. "Does he have the money?"

"He stole your wallet."

Murray glanced to the bedside table where, sure enough, his wallet was missing. He sighed.

"I wanted to talk to you," Indrid said, "Your friend feels responsible for this…upside down crossing with your dimension."

Murray nodded. "Probably."

"I will help him close those gates, but you must promise you will keep him from closing every gate." Before Murray could argue he said, "I like it here, but I do not want to be trapped on your earth. The upside down is not the only dimension to cross with yours, and most are not so malicious."

"You're from another dimension?"

Indrid nodded. The sound of Alexei scuffling with the key outside kept Murray from asking more, Indrid quickly said, "Just, keep it in mind."

Alexei had bought a bag of hot dogs, and a six pack of coke. Murray was really going to have to give him a talk about American food, and what qualified as edible. It was hard to eat with the low buzzing unease that Indrid gave him, and after a moment of shuffling discomfort, the man, creature, offered to drop his guise.

He closed the curtains and filled the room like a black hole.

It was obvious the name Moth Man hadn't been minted by anyone who'd actually seen him.

In the end they stayed in that motel just outside of Point Pleasant for a week. Indrid and Alexei drafted complex schematics of gloves and throwing disks that would allow him to control some kind of antimatter field. While they worked on that, Murray stayed busy writing their accounts down and making notes on how he might connect everything in a believable way. The occasional break to take Alexei to the hardware store for wire and magnets and other strange bits of material gave him a chance to stop and let his brain chew over the problem.

At night Alexei would curl up and try to read the manuscript, the pages splayed out before him and his English-Russian dictionary open in his lap. "_Quite the story_."

"Mmhmm."

"_Could always sell it as a fiction. Like the mothman prophecies. Have you ever tried fiction?_" Alexei asked.

"_Never again._" he shook his head and laughed, "_There is one piece of advice every fiction writer will tell you and that is 'show don't tell', but in journalism we have to do the opposite. I tried writing fiction and it was the worst thing I'd ever read._"

Alexei grinned, "_Really?_"

Murray nodded. "_I'd really thought I could just write a story. Why not? How hard could it be?_"

"_Can I read it?_"

"_No, I burned the entire manuscript in my sink._"

Alexei snorted. "_Seems a little dramatic._"

Murray tried not to think about the only novel he would ever write. His heavy handed attempts at symbolism and the plot that wasn't really a plot. It had been a series of strange observations about other people poorly cobbled together into a narrative about feeling like an outsider. It had been like every other coming of age story a white man had written.

"_It wasn't._" He shrugged and gave Alexei a weak grin. "_Best left to the professionals._"

"_Well, you have the shitty posture of a professional writer._"

Murray frowned in confusion, then blinked in surprise when Alexei leaned closer to run a finger over the back of Murray's neck. "_You stoop_." He pulled back and straightened his own posture. "_You should do the stretches the doctor gave me. Me with a gunshot wound. You on your way to an impressive hump. It'll be fun._"

Murray hit him in the face with a pillow.

He fell back with a laugh. "_You could just say 'no'._"

Murray did, but when Alexei finally went through the list of exercises he'd been prescribed, Murray silently joined him.

Murray didn't know where Indrid went at night, but he was always there come morning, patiently waiting outside their door or sitting in the rocking chair on their balcony. And when they were finally ready to leave town he was there, ready to see them off. They loaded their bags and Indrid shuffled close to get a look at their map. He traced the missing person's posters, and the lines of ink that trailed from Amber to Chillicothe.

Finally, as they were settling into their seats and debating how to say goodbye, Indrid leaned into the open driver's side window and said, "You're not being followed, but you're not the only ones looking for trouble. Be careful or they will spot you."

"Right."

"Could I see your notebook?" he asked.

Alexei handed it over, the pen clipped to the top, and Indrid flipped to a page in the back and scribbled something quickly and handed it back. It said, "Amber, they forgot to ask for the autograph. - Indrid Cold, The Moth Man"

Murray turned to ask how he'd known, but he was gone.

**Notes for the Chapter:**

> I hope every single time they said "we're not hunting the mothman" you all pictured me looking directly into the camera and winking at you, the reader. Also did my best from keeping this Indrid from turning into TAZ:Amnesty Indrid. Who I love, but was not the intended result.

**Author's Note:**

> Do you know how hard it is to talk about pottery wheels AND NOT MAKE A GHOST JOKE???  
Honestly I deserve some kind of medal, but I will settle for comments and kudos? ;D ;D


End file.
